100 great movies by female directors as selected by Little White Lies magazine
This was a list published in July 2015 by Little White Lies magazine. It was followed up with a riposte/rejoinder/amplification/complement (whichever takes your fancy) when Sight & Sound published in their October 2015 issue a list of 100 female-directed hidden gems (listed here: S&S 100). The Sight & Sound one has done a considerable amount of archive spelunking and cinematic archaeology compared with this list which is very fresh by comparison, each to their own.
Some of the listings appear a mite nerdish, i.e. iconic but not particularly good movies that you probably didn't know were directed by women. However there is something about the list that is very refreshing, e.g. an entry like Sharon Lockhart's Double Tide, a personal favourite of mine, but as a feature film with just two shots, both of which are static and showing a lady picking clams in an estuary, is not the type of film you would expect to see in a list of 100 great male directed films (although someone like James Benning would cheerfully make a film of this ilk). Similarly Double Agent 73, a sexploitation movie starring Chesty Morgan, would probably not be in a male list, although Radley Metzger would have been fine to make this movie (as cheerfully as James Benning no doubt). The list compilers appear to have broken free from the type of canonical "anchoring" that goes on when you see unisex lists, i.e. back in the 50s movies like Kane and Bicycle Thieves were on top, and it's very hard to move away from that conceptual anchoring of this is what a great movie looks like.
A personal quibble for me is that Josephine Decker's second feature film Thou Wast Mild and Lovely comes off as more accomplished than the rather raw piece Butter On The Latch, listed here. In general I had a bit of a feeling that some of the movies were not necessarily the director's best. It seems disappointing for example to list Penelope Spheeris for Wayne's World when she has made a wonderful socially responsible film like I Don't Know.
It is a Solveig-less list, no Solveig Anspach, no Solveig Nordlund. They have obviously had to leave out many great female directors given only 100 slots (the highest profile filmmakers I can think of who are out of the picture are Naomi Kawase, Camera d'Or and Jury Prize winner at Cannes, Mai Zetterling, Golden Lion winner for short film at Venice with several other Cannes and Venice nominations and Liliana Cavani, 3 wins at Venice).
There is a contemporary bias to the listing, which is I guess fair enough as the magazine itself it very contemporary in its focus and I guess is trying to support living filmmakers. If this were not the case, doubtless you would be seeing Mädchen in Uniform (1931) in the mix. Given that the list is fine with experimental cinema it seems a real gap that Marie Menken doesn't gets a mention.
Everyone has their own take on this subject, and I believe it to be a useful and important list, hence taking the time to cc it on IMDb.
Some of the listings appear a mite nerdish, i.e. iconic but not particularly good movies that you probably didn't know were directed by women. However there is something about the list that is very refreshing, e.g. an entry like Sharon Lockhart's Double Tide, a personal favourite of mine, but as a feature film with just two shots, both of which are static and showing a lady picking clams in an estuary, is not the type of film you would expect to see in a list of 100 great male directed films (although someone like James Benning would cheerfully make a film of this ilk). Similarly Double Agent 73, a sexploitation movie starring Chesty Morgan, would probably not be in a male list, although Radley Metzger would have been fine to make this movie (as cheerfully as James Benning no doubt). The list compilers appear to have broken free from the type of canonical "anchoring" that goes on when you see unisex lists, i.e. back in the 50s movies like Kane and Bicycle Thieves were on top, and it's very hard to move away from that conceptual anchoring of this is what a great movie looks like.
A personal quibble for me is that Josephine Decker's second feature film Thou Wast Mild and Lovely comes off as more accomplished than the rather raw piece Butter On The Latch, listed here. In general I had a bit of a feeling that some of the movies were not necessarily the director's best. It seems disappointing for example to list Penelope Spheeris for Wayne's World when she has made a wonderful socially responsible film like I Don't Know.
It is a Solveig-less list, no Solveig Anspach, no Solveig Nordlund. They have obviously had to leave out many great female directors given only 100 slots (the highest profile filmmakers I can think of who are out of the picture are Naomi Kawase, Camera d'Or and Jury Prize winner at Cannes, Mai Zetterling, Golden Lion winner for short film at Venice with several other Cannes and Venice nominations and Liliana Cavani, 3 wins at Venice).
There is a contemporary bias to the listing, which is I guess fair enough as the magazine itself it very contemporary in its focus and I guess is trying to support living filmmakers. If this were not the case, doubtless you would be seeing Mädchen in Uniform (1931) in the mix. Given that the list is fine with experimental cinema it seems a real gap that Marie Menken doesn't gets a mention.
Everyone has their own take on this subject, and I believe it to be a useful and important list, hence taking the time to cc it on IMDb.
List activity
112 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
100 titles